


vice versa

by tagteamme



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Bodyswap, M/M, MILD - Freeform, Mentions of Other Voltron Paladins, Mentions of Violence, Size Kink, because i'm actin a fool anyways, despite it all they still find a way to be romantic, i'm gonna tag it, mild existential crisis, poor humor poorer science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-20 20:11:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14901198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tagteamme/pseuds/tagteamme
Summary: There’s a long moment of silence as Keith stares at himself, and his brain’s having a hard time wrapping itself around the sight.“You’re me,” He says finally and watches as he shakes his head.“No,” The voice is the same, but there’s an underlying firmness to it that seems to come naturally. “I’m Shiro.”Another long silence passes as the words process through Keith’s brain on a syllable-by-syllable basis.





	vice versa

**Author's Note:**

> In keeping with my tradition of posting something either fluffy or silly before a new season, here's a bodyswap fic that I had to get out before my canonical size kink potentially gets jossed. See you on the other side of season 6.....yee haw....

Keith feels heavy when he comes to. There's a weight on his chest, a dull ache in his arms, and a sharp throb in his temples. His mouth feels bitter and dry as a desert; when he runs his tongue over his bottom lip, he can feel the sharp sting of a split.

More distressingly, when he turns his head to the side, Keith sees Lance sitting on a chair beside his bed, arms folded over his chest as he observes Keith.

“Oh good,” Lance says as Keith tries to blink the fuzziness away from his eyes. “You're awake.”

Keith lets out a creaky groan that feels heavy in his throat. Lance retrieves a glass of water and looks unusually sombre as he presses the lip of the glass to Keith's mouth. Keith eyes him warily as he drinks the cold liquid. It makes his throat feel a lot less dry, but there's still a weird weight in it.

“Keith,” Lance says solemnly, setting the glass down on the table beside them. It's then that Keith registers that he's not in a cryopod and he's not in his own bed. They're in one of the more comfortable civilian quarters in the castle, one he thought only he and Shiro knew about. “Something happened to Shiro.”

Keith shoots up immediately at the words, but Lance puts an open palm on his chest and pushes him down. Keith's heart is racing at a thousand miles a second. _Something happened to Shiro._ The phrase induces instant panic within him.

He's not sure what they had been hit by, but Keith remembers an angry eldritch creature roaring in their faces before the intergalactic witch riding on its tongue levelled them with what looked like a decidedly non-magical rocket launcher.

“He’s okay,” Lance says, and it sounds like he’s making an attempt to sound soothing. It only agitates Keith more and he’s about to demand what happened when Lance continues.

“He got hit by the same attack you did,” Lance says. “He’s alive, but it's left him horribly disfigured.”

It was only supposed to be a supply run. Blood thunders through Keith's eardrums as he remembers Red breaking through the caves, coming in too late because everything had been going white and Keith had been reaching for Shiro and—

“Lance,” comes a reprimanding voice from the other side of the bed. It’s awfully familiar in a way that Keith can’t quite place so he turns his head over and does a double take.

He must be dead or dreaming, because sitting on a chair opposite to Lance is a face that is awfully familiar because it’s Keith’s. There’s a long moment of silence as Keith stares at himself, and his brain’s having a hard time wrapping itself around the sight.

“You’re me,” He says finally and watches as he shakes his head.

“No,” The voice is the same, but there’s an underlying firmness to it that seems to come naturally. “I’m Shiro.”

Another long silence passes as the words process through Keith’s brain on a syllable-by-syllable basis.

“Uh,” Keith says intelligently. He shifts, tries to prop himself up on his elbows, but a sharp pinprick of pain shoots through his right bicep. He looks down and sees a robotic arm he’s all too familiar with— the only thing is, it’s normally attached to someone else.

“Do you think he’s ready?” Lance asks Shiro – _Shiro?_ – but doesn’t wait for an answer before reaching down for something underneath his chair.

Lance holds up a small hand-sized mirror to Keith’s face. Keith blinks as Shiro’s face stares back at him. The first thing Keith notices is a gash on the right cheek and gets a little upset that something’s marked Shiro. Then he realizes what it means exactly to look into a mirror and have someone else stare back. He doesn’t know what to make of it but thankfully, he’s saved by the fact that his – _Shiro’s_ – body decides that blacking out again is the best option.

 

* * *

 

Pidge and Allura get tasked with explaining what happened to Keith. Pidge, because she's halfway through maybe replicating the witch’s magic ray gun with Hunk, Allura because she has an air of diplomacy which means she won't drop innumerable rude jokes about how Shiro's been cursed to a lifetime of ugliness like Lance does. Keith's already told Lance that he's not been able to think of a retort because it physically hurts him to look at someone so ugly for more than three seconds and Lance has asked him if that means he wants Shiro to wear a bag on his head while he's in Keith's body. Hunk’s not here because he says he needs some time to come to terms with the situation. Shiro can't explain it to Keith for obvious reasons, the main being that Keith won’t be able to concentrate if he has to interact with himself. Or Shiro, in his body.

It's half magic, half science, which means it’s all science with half of it unexplained. The words quintessence and life force are thrown around a lot, so much so that they lose most of their meaning. Essentially, Shiro and Keith have swapped bodies with each other, as they had both been in the direct line of fire.

They had been running a simple supply mission, a glorified spelunking trip through winding caverns in a planet too corrosive to sustain life. Keith and Shiro had made it through the maze of rocks and oozing unidentifiable slime, picking up no pings of any life form as they chipped off small opal-coloured rocks from the occasional rare cluster that they would find. It was crucial for a series of shields Hunk and Allura had been piecing together, all prototypes for a new type of defence for the castle. They came across what they thought was an exceptionally large mound of opal coloured rocks, but it turned out to be a living, breathing creature with an easily agitated witch living in its mouth. Shiro has already given Coran details of the attack, and Coran had been able to narrow down which witch rained down hell upon them for waking her up.

Coran’s determined to track down the witch, primarily because she’s evil and Voltron leaves no villain unscathed, but also because if Keith and Shiro don’t switch back within the week, their life force will fuse to the body that they’re in. If they try to reverse the process after their window of opportunity, they will start disintegrating.

“We’ll find a way out,” Allura says encouragingly and Pidge nods eagerly behind her.

They’ve both got a weird twitch to their eye that tells Keith that they’ve been practicing sounding confident in front of the mirror. The two of them are terrible actors, and he rubs his hands over his face. His large, strong hands. Shiro’s hands. He stares at them for a second and turns them over, conflicted.

“This is weird,” He mutters, and Allura makes some sort of soothing sound. “I don’t know how to explain this.”

“Is it like an out of body experience?” Pidge helpfully supplies, and Keith rolls his eyes.

“It’s like a _dream_ ,” He says firmly, but his lips still twitch.

 

* * *

 

It could be worse, he faintly thinks. It could have been Lance. He had been standing guard outside of the caves and had been the one to drag Keith and Shiro to safety. If Keith had sent out his SOS ping just a second earlier, if Lance had reached just a fraction earlier, this situation would have potentially been infinitely worse.

“It could have been worse,” Shiro echoes from behind him. “You could have been switched with someone else entirely. I’m not sure what I would have done.”

“Separate beds, probably,” Keith murmurs, and Shiro snorts.

They’re standing in their washroom, Keith leaning forward and inspecting an extremely square jaw. He’s seen it up close plenty of times, and it’s handsome as ever. It’s just that now it's attached to Keith, and he can’t quite wrap his head around it. Keith knows Shiro like the back of his hand, but he rarely looks in a mirror, and it’s going to be disconcerting not being able to read Shiro’s expressions till they fix this problem. Amongst other things.

Shiro’s standing behind him with a look of what Keith guesses is concern. Shiro’s taking this a little better, but that’s because he woke up a few hours before Keith did and had plenty of time to freak out in front of the team before collecting himself and devising a strategy for catching the witch.

Allura had suggested they sleep in separate rooms. It’s been a long day, and they might feel more comfortable not falling asleep beside their own bodies. Keith’s knee jerk reaction had been a no, because no matter what form Shiro came in, even if it was Keith’s, he was better with Shiro’s presence than without.

Keith feels a warm hand press against his shoulder blades and— wow, his hand feels small against Shiro’s back. Keith’s still trying to get used to Shiro’s bulk, and has spent the better portion of the evening lumbering around like Frankenstein’s monster.

Shiro slides his hand to Keith’s shoulder and turns Keith around, bringing his hand down to the small of Keith’s back. It’s the normal prelude to a kiss that Keith almost falls easily into until he comes face-to-face with himself.

There’s a heavily pregnant pause where they both stare at each other. Normally, gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes is something that comes naturally to them, much to the annoyance of literally everyone else, but there’s something deeply unnerving about Keith trying to look affectionately at his own face, even though he knows its Shiro in there.

“I don’t know if I can kiss myself,” Shiro says, reaching up to touch Keith’s face. He presses the rough pads of his fingers against Keith’s lower lip. “I haven’t looked at myself for this long in my entire life.”

“What if we closed our eyes?”  Keith asks, and Shiro hums thoughtfully before following the suggestion. Keith does the same and cups Shiro's face, trying not to think about how his hand spans so much of Shiro's – _Keith's_ – jaw. He knows Shiro likes how it feels to need so little to take up Keith's space, but it's strange being on the other side.

Their lips meet and for the briefest moment Keith forgets the situation. Their bodies are different but they still know how to move their lips against each other in a way that they like. Keith slides a hand idly across Shiro's ribs and—

And the way his hand spans so much skin jolts Keith back to reality. It has the same effect on Shiro, and they break apart, looking wide-eyed at each other.

“Well,” Keith says faintly. “At least we didn't switch with Lance.”

 

* * *

 

The lions are an easy deal to work out. Keith and Shiro can both pilot Black, regardless of who’s in who’s body. Red allows Keith to pilot her, but Allura is ready to step in for Blue if Lance needs to go to Red. Keith would rather he not; he’s missed Red, and misses being Shiro’s right hand man. He also knows that Allura loves to pilot Blue but also loves to be the one in main command on the castle ship. Either way, if they get caught under a heavy assault, Voltron will be able to form.

Learning how to fight in Shiro's body is less simple. Keith's not used to moving with so much weight attached to him; he's obviously got the strength, but he's not got Shiro's spatial awareness. Shiro’s got a similar problem; fighting while being leaner isn’t hard for him to adjust to, but keeping the distance of a shorter man is.

Hunk’s tinkering on the copy of the weapon the witch had used, while Lance, Coran and Allura are busy sifting through surveillance data and readings from nearby solar systems. Pidge is on the training deck with Keith and Shiro, and she’s running different programs through the gladiator bot so that Keith and Shiro can get comfortable in fighting in each other’s bodies.

Keith had slept deeply, exhausted from the day's revelations, and had almost forgotten the situation until he rolled over to say good morning to Shiro and had come face-to-face with his own drooling, sleep-crusted face. Panic had overtaken him for a second and he had tensed so much that Shiro had shifted awake. Keith knows that Shiro had experienced the same disorientation because he had stared unblinkingly at Keith.

“It wasn't a dream,” Shiro had said faintly and Keith empathized deeply with the disappointment in his voice.

On the plus side, Shiro’s body is as flexible as Keith’s and Keith can still use his legs to barrage the bot with kicks. It’s a little more clumsy though and the bot snags Keith a lot more often than he’d like to admit. They’ve not even made it to training in paladin armour yet, and it’s getting frustrating.

“Again!” Pidge calls out when Keith mistimes a kick and finds his ankle getting deflected before it gets grabbed.

The bot uses its considerable strength to use the power of Keith’s strike to throw off his balance. Keith goes careening as the bot turns on Shiro, and Shiro manages to land a good hard knock on the bot’s chest. He manages to jump back before the bot can swing at him, but when he tries to leap forward in an attack, he misjudges the distance and falls flat.

“Are you sure you guys don’t want to start with a simpler exercise first?” Pidge calls out. “This is getting kind of sad.”

“No,” Shiro replies adamantly. “We need to be prepared. We can’t be two thirds of the fighters we were.”

“You’re the only one that’s two thirds of who you were,” Pidge quips. “Keith’s become twice the man he was.”

“Hilarious,” Keith says dryly from where he’s yet to get off the floor. “Let’s go again.”

“Here,” Pidge frowns at her tablet for a second, and swipes. The bot powers down,and Keith hauls himself to his feet. “Shiro, go stand over by Keith.”

Shiro obeys, groaning as he stands up. He walks over to Keith and stands in front of him, and Keith can feel more heat radiating off his body than he can feel from his own.

“A little to your right,” Pidge calls out and Shiro shuffles over. “Great. Keith, raise your left arm.”

Keith frowns but complies with her order, raising it out straight beside him.

“Okay, clench your fist.” Keith follows the orders, and Pidge hums. “Alright cool, now slowly draw back your hand towards your shoulder.”

Keith follows automatically, and it’s not till he sees the impressive curve of the muscle bulge out from his arm that he registers what Pidge is doing.

“Pidge,” Shiro starts in an admonishing tone, turning around, but Pidge is already grinning as she holds up her tablet to take a picture.

“See,” She crows. “Your bicep’s almost the size of Keith’s head. Or Shiro’s head. I don’t know. The head formerly known as Keith.”

“I get it,” Keith grunts, and unflexes but Pidge beams.

“Told you,” She crows. “Twice the man.”

 

* * *

 

They make no headway on the witch but Pidge works them to the bone. Allura drops in a while later and says she wants to put them through their paces despite the fact that they’re both flushed and on the ground, and by the end of the day, Keith’s ready to drop. Coran tells them that they’ve found absolutely nothing on the witch, not even a last known location aside from where she zapped Shiro and Keith. She’s long abandoned the planet she was on, and Keith wants to melt through the floor.

He wants to go to bed, wants to get held and petted by Shiro like a cat till he goes to sleep except he _is_ Shiro so he’s not sure how that’s going to work because he’s not sure how he feels about cozying up to himself. Shiro voices something to a similar effect, and while they still follow through on any urge to casually touch each other, Keith has to make sure he doesn’t think too hard about who’s holding who’s hand.

Keith vaguely contemplates sleeping with a mask on so that he can feel the weight of a body beside him without actually seeing who it is, but that’d mean trying to get through a conversation with Lance without having the vein in his forehead throb while Lance lobs one joke at him after the other.

After hitting the showers, a phenomenally weird experience despite being well acquainted with Shiro’s naked body and having a deep appreciation for it, Keith makes a beeline towards their room. Shiro had stood with him under the hot spray, and they had both squinted at each other.

“I have a lot more scars than I thought,” Shiro had murmured, eyeing Keith, and Keith had put his hands on his hips.

“You look good,” Keith had replied, and scanned Shiro once over. Seeing himself fully naked in a mirror was one thing, but having his body stand in front of him while giving him an assessing look was another. Eventually, they opted to stand back to back and rinse off as quickly as possible.

As soon as the door closes behind them, Keith flops onto the bed. He feels the mattress creak underneath, and Shiro sprawls out on top of his back. Keith’s tempted to turn over, but needs a moment before he comes face-to-face with his own face.

“I miss my body,” Keith says, and Shiro hums in agreement. “Not that yours is bad.”

“Thanks,” Shiro says dryly. “It feels really weird trying to hug myself.”

“I know,” Keith sighs. His voice sounds even deeper than it does when he’s in his normal body listening to Shiro speak. It’s rich and luxurious and smooth, and it's extremely odd to be attracted to what is technically his own voice.

For the moment anyways. Hopefully.

“If we’re stuck like this for good,” Shiro begins, and Keith makes a noise in protest. “No, we have to talk about this. If we’re stuck like this for good, we need to start getting used to seeing our faces.”

“What do you mean?” Keith frowns and starts to turn over. “I’ve adjusted already.”

Shiro props himself up to give Keith  the space, and drops himself back on a broad chest. Keith tries maintaining eye contact with Shiro, and they both break and look away at the same time.

“Nevermind,” Keith mumbles, covering his face with his hand. Shiro’s hand. God, he hates this.

“We need to,” Shiro continues. “If we need to...er, continue other aspects of our relationship. That is, if you want to.”

Keith drags his hand down his face and frowns. “What do you mean if I want to?”

“I’d understand if you didn’t,” Shiro says solemnly. Which isn’t saying much, because Keith’s realized his neutral voice, the one from his original body, sounds like he’s giving an obituary. “It’s a lot get adjusted to and if we get stuck like this, we might need to put some things on hold.”

“ _Shiro_ ,” Keith can’t parse through whether Shiro’s asking for permission or giving it as an option, but panic floods in Keith anyways and his mouth starts to run. “Shiro, no. We can’t just end over this, I- Shiro, so much has happened, we can’t just–”

“ _Keith_.” The firmness of Shiro’s command comes through and Keith immediately shuts up. “I wasn’t talking about that.”

Shiro pushes himself further up Keith’s chest, and before Keith can register think about how it’s vaguely unsettling to see his own face closing in, Shiro’s kissing him. Keith closes his eyes and the feeling of it changes because even though the other mouth’s smaller, the lips are a little drier, he can still feel Shiro through the way he moves his lips, honed over years to do exactly what Keith likes.

He threads fingers through Shiro’s hair and tugs him closer, working hard to keep his eyes scrunched shut. The pressure is reassuring and the weight of the body on top of him is comforting. Keith snakes an arm around a narrow waist and draws close.

“ _Mmpf_ ,” Keith hears in the distance, but keeps kissing. It feels like it’s been forever since he’s gotten Shiro like this, and he’s so, _so_ close to just forgetting the situation altogether because he’s so lost in it.

“Ke- Keith,” Shiro says, the _th_ sounding like a _ff,_  and Keith finally registers that Shiro’s trying to say his name.

He breaks apart and opens his eyes, and feels one of them twitch at the sight of his own face, slightly flushed and kiss-bitten. It’s not any less unnerving to see his own face _this_ close; he can see where his skin’s dry, a little nick on the tip of his chin, can see why Pidge tells him his eyebrows are uneven. This is a lot more than Keith ever wants to see of himself, and he blinks.

“Yeah,” Shiro says, pressing his lips together. “I was just talking about _this_ kind of stuff. We might have to put off any intimate physical activity till we’re fully adjusted.”

“Oh,” Keith says. He keeps looking at his own face. _So_ unnerving. He figures it might be easier for Shiro, because Shiro’s face has been chiseled by a higher power. “Yeah, you’re right.”

“I’m not going to break up with you,” Shiro mercifully drops his head onto Keith’s chest, turning to the side so that all Keith can see is dark hair. “Love you too much for that, Keith. Don’t care what form you’re in, even if it’s mine.”

It’s immeasurably sweet and Keith murmurs out a small _I love you too_ as he raises his hand to card through Shiro’s hair. Shiro leans into it and makes a sound that almost sounds like a purr, and Keith starts to scritch his fingers against Shiro’s scalp.

“You know,” Keith says idly, and Shiro hums. “It’s kind of weird hearing you say I love you.”

“How so?” Shiro asks, not lifting his head.

“It sounds like I’m telling myself that,” Keith says. “Hearing it in my own voice is weird.”

“Is it?” Shiro sounds bemused, and Keith clears his throat.

“I love you, Shiro,” Keith supplies as seriously as possible. “So much, Shiro. Shiro, I love you. All my love is for you, Sh-”

“I get it,” Shiro cuts him off, but Keith can hear the smile in his voice. “Yeah you’re right. I love you, Keith.”

“Love you, Shiro,” Keith says, and he can see Shiro’s shoulders start to shake. “Shi _ro_.”

Shiro barks out a laugh at and props himself up again, pushing at Keith’s face to shut him up.

“Maybe if we said it ourselves?” Shiro says. “Then it’ll be like we’re hearing it from each other.”

Keith raises his eyebrows, and Shiro coughs and clears his throat. He levels Keith with a serious look, and Keith knows now what Hunk means when he says he’s got a resting murder face.

“Shiro,” Shiro says with all the seriousness in the world. “I love you.”

Keith’s mouth twitches, but he tries to keep his expression as steady as possible.

“I love you, Keith,” Keith says, and has to admit that Shiro does have a point. It sounds a lot better coming from Shiro’s voice than it does from his own.

“I love you, Shiro,” Shiro manages to say, voice cracking at the end. Keith sniggers and Shiro joins in.

“Thanks baby,” Keith says, trying to mimic the smooth ease of Shiro’s voice. It comes out almost perfect, and Shiro snorts beside him. “I love you too. Keith.”

“Stop,” Shiro says, and there’s a whining lilt to his voice that’s both highly exaggerated and tells Keith that Shiro’s doing more than just asking him to cut it out.

“I do not sound like that,” Keith pushes at Shiro gently. “Shut up.”

“That’s exactly how you sound like,”  Shiro turns over to look at Keith and wiggles his eyebrows. “But I like it.”

“Ew,” Keith huffs. “Stop saying that while you’re in my body.”

Keith sees the moment an ostensibly idiotic joke forms in Shiro’s head, and shoves at him hard enough to send him exclaiming and falling off the bed. Keith rolls over onto his stomach and pulls himself to the corner of the mattress, looking down on Shiro. Shiro looks disgruntled, and Keith will die before he admits it but now he sees why people say he looks like a petulant teenager.

“Sorry,” He says to Shiro, and Shiro makes a face at him. “Don’t know my own strength yet.”

 

* * *

 

Another day approaches, and they don’t get any closer to finding the witch. Coran and Allura are trying their hardest to parse through whatever data they can collect, and Lance is assisting them. Occasionally, he tries to interrogate Keith on how it feels like to not be the ugliest one for a change, and Keith informs him that he hasn’t felt that way since he ran into him. Hunk and Pidge have gotten something they claim is a full functional prototype of the witch’s launcher-raygun, so Hunk brings Shiro and Keith into one of the workshops to test it out.

The machine looks absolutely nothing like what had been pointed at them by the witch, but Keith has some amount of faith in Hunk and Pidge’s capabilities. It also helps that Hunk plans to do one last test in front of them before he uses it on Keith and Shiro. It’s a courtesy, because the previous tests have worked, but Keith feels a semblance of calm at the gesture.

Pidge sets out two jars on a surgical table. Each contains a thick worm-like creature and a tiny branch propped up inside. One worm is coiled at the bottom of its jar, while the other one slowly twists around the branch, slowly crawling up the jar.

“They’re of the same species,” Pidge says. “And they’ve got distinct enough personalities that we’ll be able to tell when they switch.”

“Is this who you’ve been testing on?” Keith frowns and side-eyes Shiro. Shiro’s wearing a similar expression and Hunk scratches the back of his head as Pidge secures the jars to the table.

“Not a lot of testing options,” Hunk says. “Figuring out what to do to begin with was hard enough. Pidge and I had to stitch together like, twelve different books from the library to get this to work. We’ve always been looking out for new information, but this is the best we can do and it’ll do the job.”

“Oh,” Keith and Shiro reply at the same time.

“But hey,” Hunk says, his voice perking up. “It worked really well last time!”

“And the twenty three times before that,” Pidge adds and Hunk nods furiously. “It’ll work on you guys too. This is just one last test to show that everything’s in working order.”

Keith knows Hunk and Pidge are some of the most intelligent he knows; and this is _after_ running into planets and planets full of new intelligent species with incomprehensible technology. He trusts them to build the gun; he just thinks that something as complex and unknown as this is way out of all of their pay grades. The witch they were after has been alive for over a thousand years. Hunk and Pidge have been working on this gun for a couple of days. Keith also knows that he’s got to look encouraging. Shiro had told him before they stepped in that they both had to, as to not discourage Hunk and Pidge.

“Let’s do it,” Shiro says with a confident voice. It belies the nervousness that they’re both feeling because Shiro’s convinced that if they look like they have faith, the chances of this thing working are higher.

The gun is conical, with a giant bulb on the end. It’s propped up on a stand, pointing down towards the table, and reminds Keith of something found in a cartoon villain’s lair. Hunk and Pidge herd them backwards till they’re standing five feet behind the gun.

“Don’t want to be hit by an errant ray,” Hunk explains and Keith’s eye twitches.

  
“There are errant rays?” Keith asks warily, but Pidge flips a switch on the giant remote she’s holding and the hum drowns it out.

The machine takes a full ten seconds to warm up. Keith crosses his big arms over his broad chest and Shiro places a hand on his shoulder. They watch as the bulb in the centre glows a fluorescent pink, emitting a small halo of light. It grows larger as the humming grows louder, and Keith can feel a current crackle through the air.

“And…” Pidge trails off, turning a few dials. Keith spares one last look at the worms, just as she punches a button. “We’re off.”

There’s a loud whine, and Keith winces. The halo grows larger and larger, and Keith shields his eyes as the room floods in the bright pink light. The whine grows louder, and he can feel goosebumps rising. The hair stands on the back of his neck and there’s a shrill screech which causes him to let out a grunt of pain and—

Suddenly the light swallows itself, and the crackle vacuums out. The charge is immediately drained from the room and it goes dark. Keith lowers his arms from his face, and Hunk and Pidge lift their goggles off their faces. Pidge completely powers down the machine, and it comes to a whining halt.

Hunk walks over to the table and bends down, unstrapping the jars. He squints, before a big grin sprawls across his face.

“Hah!” Hunk exclaims. “It worked!”

“Wasn’t it supposed to?” Keith asks faintly, but feels some excitement anyways as he, Shiro and Pidge join Hunk at the table.

Hunk picks up one of the jars, and all four of them peer in through the glass. The worm that had been previously lazily coiled at the bottom of the jar is now twisting around the stick at a rapid pace, much like its counterpart had been doing.

“Woah,” Shiro says and Keith shares the sentiment. It looks like the machine’s worked, which is infinitely more than Keith expected. He’s about to ask what the next step, when there’s a dull tapping sound.

The worm in the jar is knocking its head against the inside of the jar. Pidge raises an eyebrow, and they give a unified blink as the worm pauses, turns their head to each of them, and slowly opens a mouth that had definitely not been there before. Muffled noise comes out, but Keith’s unable to decipher any of it.

“Uh,” Hunk says.

“Hunk,” Shiro begins, but clamps his mouth shut. It’s probably for the best, because Hunk and Pidge are still staring at the jar.

“Open it,” Keith says, but Hunk and Pidge both shake their heads. “Ok, I will.”

He pries the lid off the jar with a little more force than necessary. Given that he’s in Shiro’s body, it means the lid pops clean off, just in time for them to hear what noise the worm’s making. Or, now that it’s loud and clear, what worm’s saying.

“ _WHERE AM I?”_ the worm yells in a frantic, deep voice. “ _WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME? WHERE AM I?”_

“Oh _shit_ ,” Hunk squeaks out and almost drops the jar. The worm screams, loud and clear and terrifying and Shiro manages to catch the jar in time.

“ _WHO WAS THAT? WHY IS IT SO DARK?”_ The worm’s voice cracks it lets out one gut wrenching wail after the other. “ _WHERE AM I? WHY CAN’T I FEEL MY ARMS? WHERE AM I–”_

Keith promptly slams the lid down on the jar, eyes wide. He looks at Shiro, who looks equally horrified. Pidge has a death grip on Hunk’s shoulder, her knuckles going extremely white.

“I can fix this,” Hunk says weakly. “We can fix this. Right, Pidge?”

“Uh huh,” She replies, sounding extremely unsure.

“Good. We can fix this,” Hunk says before promptly passing out.

 

* * *

 

After the mishap and their absolute refusal to step under the ray gun despite the multiple successful tests prior to the failed one, coupled with Coran only finding a single ping in relation to witch, Keith’s feeling significantly less optimistic about his and Shiro’s chances of getting back to their own bodies.

Counting the day that Keith had spent passed out, they have been in each other’s bodies for three days. They had three more till they were permanently fused within them, and things were not looking up in their favour. So Keith’s decided that they might as well start getting used certain aspects of their relationship. He brings it up to Shiro and Shiro raises an eyebrow. Or tries to. Keith doesn’t really have the capability of raising just one single brow at a time, and he watches as Shiro twitches and eventually raises both in defeat.

“Really?” He asks from where he’s lying beside Keith. They’re both on their backs, pressed shoulder to shoulder with each other. “After today?”

Keith nods, though he’s inclined to see why Shiro would be hesitant. Hunk reversed the ray gun and managed to swap back the worms and hopefully whoever’s life-force the other worm had picked up. They think. It’s a lot to deal with, a lot to think about, and effectively a mood killer if they dwell on the implications of it it for too long. Taking his mind off the situation is another reason Keith’s feeling slightly insistent.

“Just incase,” Keith says. “Just incase we’re stuck like this.”

Shiro looks contemplative. They’ve been maintaining their regular levels of casual contact; Keith thinks that’s so ingrained in them, existing before they elevated beyond friends, that it’ll never leave. Occasionally they kiss, though it involves both of them closing their eyes twenty seconds in advance, trying to feel each other’s faces out with their hands and inevitably missing anyways.

The only time it’s been relatively easy was this morning, when Keith rolled on top of Shiro to kiss him out of habit. It had been easy through the foggy haze of sleep, and Shiro had pulled Keith in closer. But they had broken apart for three seconds to catch their breath, and Keith had looked down to see his own face giving him a dark and wanting look, and the moment had been ruined.

But after Hunk and Pidge’s ray gun failed on a level that evoked deep existential dread and Coran and Allura’s continuously fruitless search for the witch, things look dire. So, Keith’s willing to try and put away the weirdness of putting his hands on himself, just so that he and Shiro can have some semblance of normality. Shiro looks over at Keith, and Keith wills himself to not look away.

“Alright,” Shiro shrugs. He grunts as he pushes himself up onto his elbows and rolls over and onto Keith. Shiro presses a hand between Keith’s knees and parts them, slotting himself in between them. The movement is familiar, even if the weight itself isn’t, and Keith hooks a loose leg around the back of Shiro’s thighs.

Shiro’s looking down and the room’s dark enough that if Keith’s eyes lose their focus, he won’t be able to make out the details of his own face. He knows Shiro’s wearing an unsure expression that matches his own, but he slides a hand up Shiro’s back anyways.

“Alright,” Shiro repeats, bending down till he’s a hair’s width away from Keith’s lips. “Why not.”

 

* * *

 

The team finally makes headway in the morning, when Coran announces that he’s come across a stolen surveillance craft trying to escape the solar system they’re currently trawling through. The pilot of said craft is a known disciple of the witch; Allura and Pidge are going to run an extraction mission and once they suss out the pilot, they’ll figure out who’s going to interrogate them.

It adds on to the marginally lighter mood Keith’s feeling. The night before had started out awkward, but Keith and Shiro had eventually succeeded. He tries not to let it show on his face too much but as soon as Lance walks in for breakfast, he takes one look at them and makes an ugly face. Before he can make a quip, Coran announces the discovery.

The stolen ship requires little effort to bring in. At least, Pidge and Allura make it look effortless, because Pidge cripples the ship easily from her lion and when the pilot puts up a struggle in the hangar, Allura sighs and grows in size before grabbing him by the collar and dragging him off his ship and onto the ground. He screams and yells and she conks him on the head with her bayard, not bothering to release her whip.

“Time is of the essence,” She says primly, picking the unconscious disciple up by his wrist. He’s grey and looks oddly amphibian, his body making a _shlick shlick shlick_ sound as Allura drags him towards the doors. Eventually Hunk decides to take pity and pick up the alien’s oddly slimy legs. They take him to the medical bay, and by the time he wakes up, they’ve strapped him to a table.

“Let _go_ ,” He demands, and Shiro crosses his arms over his chest.

“We’d love to,” He says. “After you give us some information. We need to know where your master is.”

“I’m not saying anything,” The disciple spits. Shiro looks unaffected.

“If you’re scared of her, we can protect you,” He says, and the disciple narrows his eyes. “But it’s important that you tell us where she is.”

The disciple strains against the binding again, but it doesn’t give. He screams something nonsensical and Keith sees the moment Allura’s about to raise her bayard again.

“Wait,” He says, stopping her in her tracks. “Time is of the essence, remember?”

Allura slowly lowers her bayard, and narrows her eyes. Keith tries to exchange a look with her, though he’s still not sure how effective a Keith expression is on a Shiro face.

“I think we should talk about what to do,” He says slowly. “Lance and Coran should keep on eye on him, and we can discuss what to do next.”

Lance tries to protest, but Keith takes none of it. He herds the team out of the room and lets the door slide shut behind them. The remainder of the team huddles around him, ready to talk, but Keith has a different idea.

 

* * *

 

It takes just under an hour for the disciple to break. The team has been waiting outside of the doors of the medbay, strategizing on what to do when they finally find the witch. Keith and Shiro are going to go in, with Hunk, Pidge and Lance as backup. They’re going to keep their distance, just in case things go south; Keith really, _really_ does not want to switch bodies with anyone else. Coran’s going to be on communications with Allura, who’s yet to return to her normal size, and Allura’s going to be on standby just incase the rest of the team can’t subdue the witch.

Shiro’s in the middle of detailing what to do if things go further south, when Allura’s earrings flow pink. She frowns and nods as information gets relayed to her, and turns to the rest of the team.

“The disciple’s confessed,” She says. “Lance and Coran managed to extract the information through– through apparently Lance just being himself.”

“Good,” Keith says. He’s got no doubt that Lance has annoyed the information out of the disciple; having Coran there probably only helped, as the two have a tendency to bounce off onto a thousand tangents when in the same room.

The witch is not too far away, which is good news. They shove the disciple into a cryopod under the guise of making sure his head is okay before letting him go in an act of benevolence, but it’s also so that there’s no way for him to give his master a heads up. They’ll take him out when he’s ready, and when the witch has been defeated.

“Are you sure you’re ready to give up being handsome?” Lance asks from beside him as the team suits up into their armour.

“Keith always looks handsome,” Shiro admonishes Lance as he straps on a shinplate, and Lance just gives him a shit-eating smile.

“You know how you eat a dish and it’s horrible at first, but then you get used to it?” Lance begins, but Keith decides that he’s had enough and shoves at Lance a little too hard. Lance goes careening into Hunk, who doesn’t notice till Lance bounces off his back and lands on the ground.

“Sorry,” Keith says with no sincerity at all. “Don’t know my own strength yet.”

“It’ll be nice having you guys switch back,” Hunk pipes up. “Though sometimes it feels like you never changed in the first place.”

“Shiro’s nicer,” Lance says, from where he remains on the ground. “Though it’s really weird because it’s coming from Keith’s face.”

“One more joke–” Keith starts, but Pidge clears her throat and levels them both with a look that’s unimpressed enough to shut them both up. She holds it for three seconds, before bursting out into a snicker.

“Wow,” She says, putting on her helmet. “I can’t believe I just effectively stared down Shiro.”

“Don’t get used to it,” Keith grumbles. He feels someone elbow his side, and turns to see Shiro giving him a small smile.

“This is our last chance to kiss ourselves,” He says, wiggling his brows. Keith’s never not going to be weirded out by his own face giving him a suggestive look, but it’s the last time it’ll happen hopefully, so he leans down and puckers his lips.

Shiro meets him in an over-exaggerated and extremely noisy kiss, drawing groans and sounds of disgust from everyone on the team. Keith circles a hand around Shiro’s waist to draw him closer, giving a loud and obnoxious groan. Lance and Pidge make retching sounds, while Hunk coughs so hard he sounds like he’s choking. Eventually, Keith takes mercy and lets go with a loud _pop_ before plopping his helmet on.

“Ready guys?” He and Shiro ask in unison, and none of their grumbling teammates can look them in the eye.

 

* * *

 

 

As he comes to, Keith’s head feels like it weighs a ton. His chest feels constricted for the first fraction of a moment, but he takes a deep breath in and it opens up his lungs. His vision swims for a second and his legs ache; he squeezes his fists and feels nails dig into flesh. He raises his right hand— it’s a human hand.

There’s a giant scrape across the heel from where his gloves must have torn, but it’s a vivid pink mark against his skin. _His_ skin. Keith turns his hand over and sees the small familiar scar on his ring finger from where he had accidentally banged down a lid on it three weeks ago. The neatly trimmed but slightly crooked nails are familiar as well, and Keith takes a look down at himself.

He’s back in his regular body, and Keith feels a massive wave of relief at seeing his own, narrower self in sleep pants and a black tank. He registers that he’s on a bed again, but no one is beside him this time. He sits up and stretches his arms in front of him, trying to reach till his toes. He spies a mirror on the side of his bed and picks it up, and for the first time in recent memory, Keith feels _happy_ when he sees his own face staring back.

Keith remembers the fights in bits and pieces. The main objective had been to secure the weapon so that they could switch Keith and Shiro back. The witch had taken up a temporary home at the bottom of a deep fracture of an iceberg on a frosty planet, extremely sure that her magical barriers would shield her from any detection. Unfortunately for her, the disciple had been _very_ forthcoming with the information under the threat of having Lance babysit him again.

Keith and Shiro had led the charge, tunneling into a shelf of ice right above her makeshift lair with one of the smaller ships from the castle and burrowing through enough to burst through one of her carved out walls. Keith knows that their entrance had been grand; so had been the barrage of spells she had launched at them. Some were so strong that they melted through the shields of the ship Keith and Shiro had been sharing, and were it not for the fact that Hunk, Pidge, and Lance were on their tail, the two of them would have been straight _screwed_.

As it were, the three of them managed to crash through right at the moment the witch had started to grow in size. Keith remembers getting thwacked across the head by a huge hand right. He remembers his bayard transforming, he remembers driving a sword through the witch’s palm as she shrieked out another curse, remembers getting thrown off with a large amount of force and cracking his helmet against  ice.

The last thing he remembers is feeling woozy as Pidge found an opening and dragged him by the collar into one of the small snow dugouts in her lair. He had seen Shiro running towards them with the witch’s giant launcher-raygun in tow as Hunk and Lance fended her off in the distance. Time had been of the essence, and as soon as Shiro tossed the launcher, Pidge caught it, teetered a little, and had pointed it towards the two of them.

Keith puts down the mirror, and is about to swing his legs over the side of the bed, when the door to his room opens.

“Keith,” Shiro practically yells out his name as he barrels into the room, and Keith suddenly finds himself with his hands full. He slides his arms around to grip at broad shoulders as Shiro envelops him in a suffocating hug. It feels good to have Shiro’s body against him again, and Keith closes his eyes and draws Shiro closer.

“We did it,” Keith says. “It’s ok, we did it, we did it.”

“Hunk told me you got disfigured in the fight,” Shiro says, burying his face into Keith’s neck and muffling his voice. “But he wouldn’t tell me if your vitals were ok or not.”

Keith looks over Shiro’s shoulder, and sees Hunk leaning against the door frame. Hunk looks away and gives a casual whistle, and Keith rolls his eyes.

“He’s Lance’s best friend,” Keith informs Shiro while trying to glare at Hunk. “Remember?”

“Are you feeling better?” Shiro draws back and _god_ , it’s so good to see Shiro’s face again. So good that Keith has to tip forward and kiss it, has to revel for at least a moment at the feel of cupping a square jaw with his hands and pressing against softer lips.

“Are you?” Keith asks when they finally break apart, and he knows Shiro’s feeling a similar sense of relief. Shiro runs a thumb over Keith’s lip and leans in to kiss him again. Hunk clears his throat rather loudly from the door frame.

“We can get both your questions answered,” He says, still not looking at Keith and Shiro. “If we go to the med bay and get you guys scanned.”

  
“I feel okay,” Keith murmurs, and he can’t help himself-- he kisses Shiro again and again and again and _again_ , running fingers through short hair and pulling. It’s an odd thought to have, but he’s not going to take existing in his own body for granted, nor is he going to take being able to put his hands on Shiro’s body for granted either. There’s a lot of things he’s not going to take for granted anymore.

“Yeah well,” Hunk shoves his hands in his pockets and frowns, and Keith looks at him over Shiro’s shoulder. “Things went a little haywire after you two passed out.”

Keith waits for Hunk to explain, but Hunk just stares back in return. A solid fifteen seconds of silence pass by before Keith decides to prod.

“What do you mean?” Keith asks slowly, and Hunk presses his lips in a tight line. “What aren’t you telling us?”

Shiro turns to look over his shoulder as well, and the two of them stare Hunk down. Hunk looks back at them without blinking, and Shiro crosses his arms over his chest. It’s then that Keith feels a sense of familiarity at the way Hunk’s staring him down without scratching the back of his head sheepishly or gesturing with his hands.

“Did you guys mess around with the gun?” Shiro asks, and Hunk taps a finger against his chin.

“I wouldn’t exactly say mess around,” Hunk says in a voice that’s got enough fake thoughtfulness that a small amount of realization dawns upon Keith. “We just indulged in some scientific curiosity.”

“Scientific curiosity,” Keith deadpans. “Hunk.”

“Lance, actually,” Hunk supplies helpfully. “Hunk’s uh, in Pidge. And she's in me. That thing works really, really well.”

Keith stares. Slowly, he looks at Shiro. Shiro’s still staring at Hunk, looking aggressively unimpressed. Slowly, Keith slides off the bed. Hunk looks alarmed as Keith starts to stalk towards him.

“We can change back,” Hunk – _Lance_ – raises his hands in front of him. “We still have the raygun and it's in working condition. We just thought it’d be fun, but we have to make sure you guys didn’t get hit by like, any extra radiation or something and switch personality with the nearest rock. Though with Keith, that’d probably be an improvement-”

Keith presses a button and the doors slide shut. Hunk’s – _Lance’s_ – voice drowns out and he says something loud and muffled. Keith thinks it might be an “ _okay but make sure you come to the med bay eventually otherwise I’m not going to be held responsible_ ” but he’s already walking away by the third word.

“They did help us,” Shiro says, but he puts up no resistance when Keith slides a leg over his lap. “Maybe we should listen.”

Keith shrugs and pushes forward till Shiro’s on his back. He kisses the tip of Shiro’s chin before laying his head on Shiro’s chest, appreciating the width of it.

“We didn’t do it on purpose,” Keith points out, and tries not to visibly preen when he feels a hand slide over his back and a thumb start to dig under the hemline of his tank. “It’s a them problem.”

Keith might turn his nose into the cloth and take a deep inhale, might make a small sound of contentment that he’s only ever let Shiro hear, but that’s neither here nor there.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi to me on [tumblr](http://phaltu.tumblr.com) or [twitter](http://twitter.com/tagteamme)!!


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